Your happiness and success depend on your working relationships. The people you manage. How well you work with your boss. The way collaboration happens with colleagues and peers. How you connect with important prospects and key clients.

But the hard truth is this: most of us leave the health and fate of these relationships to chance. We say “Hi,” exchange pleasantries, hope for the best, and immediately get into the work.

Soon (sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes minutes), the first cracks appear. A misunderstanding. An expectation not met. A low-grade irritation. A random act of weirdness. Different ways of seeing the world or getting things done. A flare-up under stress.

Every relationship becomes suboptimal at some point, whether it’s a good one that goes off the rails or one that was poor from the start.

When suboptimal happens, most of us don’t know what to do about it. We blame them, or ourselves, or the universe (or maybe all three). We get all the feelings: sad, let down, irritated, frustrated.

But mostly we are resigned to the fact that this is what happens: relationships always get a little broken, or a little stale, or a little worse. C’est la vie, c’est la guerre. Carry on.

You will leave with a renewed optimism about the quality of their working relationships, a determination to actively manage them, and a plan to get things started.

What you will learn:

In this practical session, you'll learn how to reverse that trend and build the best possible working relationship with anyone. Well, almost anyone. You will:

• Learn the three attributes of a resilient and long-lasting relationship
• Understand how you can aspire to “the best possible relationship” with every one of your key working relationships
• Investigate the one awkward but essential conversation that will set up success
• Take a deep dive into one of the Keystone Conversation questions, and prepare your best answers to them
  
  

Michael Bungay Stanier is best known for his book The Coaching Habit, which is the best-selling book on coaching this century and is considered a classic. His most recent book is How to Work with (Almost) Anyone. It shows how to create psychological safety by building the Best Possible Relationship with key people at work.

He founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that has trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like in organizations from Microsoft to Gucci.

He left Australia about 30 years ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University … where his only significant achievement was falling in love with a Canadian … which is why he now lives in Toronto, having spent time in London and Boston.

He recently won the coaching award from Thinkers50, known as the “Oscars of management.”